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Saturday, 24 December 2016

India should be given access to CPEC (Sunday Guardian)

By M D Nalapat

Peaceful relations with India are much more to Pakistan’s advantage than to India’s.

The
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has the potential to be both an
opportunity and a threat to India’s security interests. Once the
project becomes operational, it may be feasible for Peoples Liberation
Army (PLA) armour and artillery to move within days into strike
positions on the India-Pakistan border. War between India and China
would damage the core interests of both sides for decades. Hence, it is
unlikely that President Xi Jinping would act any differently from his
predecessors during the 1965, 1971 and 1999 wars that Pakistan had with
India. During the 1965 conflict, the PLA did make a few threatening
noises over some goats and sheep that were claimed to have been stolen
by the Indian side. Several goats and sheep were thereupon marched by
herdsmen to the border with China, which was asked to accept them rather
than go to war for their sake. The livestock, which remained in India
while Chinese troops kept within their side of the frontier. In 1971 as
well, despite hopes in Rawalpindi and Washington that Beijing would
intervene in an effort to rescue the Pakistan army after it was attacked
by the Mukti Bahini-Indian Army alliance, the PLA did nothing. Indeed,
the US under the foulmouthed Richard Nixon did much, much more, even
sending a nuclear powered aircraft carrier to the Bay of Bengal in a
futile effort to overawe Indira Gandhi, who refused to halt her troops
until (what is now) Bangladesh was rid of a frankly genocidal Pakistan
army. In this, she differed from Jawaharlal Nehru, who agreed to
entreaties from Louis Mountbatten to cease fire on 1 January 1949,
before the entire state of Jammu & Kashmir had been liberated by
General Cariappa’s forces. Much later, during the 1999 Kargil episode as
well, the Chinese military did nothing. The reality is that the
leadership in Beijing sees the east Pacific coast as the probable
location for a future war, and is not eager to get involved in a
conflict with India on its west, no matter that this would be welcomed
by GHQ Rawalpindi. Also, the Chinese leadership is aware that there is
substantial potential for Sino-Indian commercial ties, and that this
would benefit the Chinese economy.

Now that the US has finally created
daylight between itself and Pakistan in the matter of strategic policy,
it should not take long for the military brass in Rawalpindi to
acknowledge that China is not going to come to their aid in the event
that the ISI’s meddling leads to a war between the two countries. Such a
conflict would hurt Pakistan far more than it would this country. An
accurate calculation of geopolitical interests indicates that peaceful
and cooperative relations with India are much more to Pakistan’s
advantage than to India’s. Peace between Delhi and Islamabad would
ensure that the Pakistan military be enabled to deal a knockout blow to
the many groups engaged in armed struggle against the Pakistan state and
its army. Such groups are continuing to operate in many locations
within Pakistan in large part because much of the army is deployed not
against them, but on the border with India. This despite the fact that
our country has for long been uninterested in another border war with
Pakistan. This could be the reason why some of the brass at GHQ
Rawalpindi are in favour of inviting India to join in developing the
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The odds are that this idea is
also favoured by the Chinese side, and if so, the changed stand
indicates that the gargantuan lobby of commercial interests in that
country may slowly be pulling ahead of the PLA in the matter of
influence over India policy. Indeed, the PLA’s infatuation with Pakistan
serves the interests of GHQ Rawalpindi and not that of the Peoples
Republic of China (PRC).

Economic fundamentals favour close cooperation in the
commerce between India and China, the way the world’s newest superpower
has established substantial business and other linkages with the US, the
EU and even traditional foe Japan. This is despite the fact that at
least the first and third of this trio are strategic rivals of China in a
much more pronounced way than India is, and could in the future be at
war with China in East Asia or the South China Sea. While India may
provide logistical assistance to Washington and Tokyo in such a conflict
should there be formal obligations to do so as a consequence of the
expected strengthening of formal US-India military ties during the
Donald Trump presidency. This would be analogous to the way China has
assisted Pakistan on occasion without getting directly involved in
actual fighting on behalf of its ally.

Should the offer of elements of GHQ Rawalpindi to India to
join in the CPEC be genuine, it may be a good idea to accept it,
provided access along the CPEC is on terms similar to that provided to
any other country, including China. Goods from India should have land
access through the corridor, including into Afghanistan and Central
Asia. It is the reachout by India to Afghanistan that most riles GHQ
Rawalpindi. However, the reality facing Pakistan is that its economic
strength is not sufficient to once again effectively make much of
Afghanistan its colony. The first time around, in the 1990s, this was
accomplished through the backing of the US, a force multiplier that is
absent now. As for the Chinese, they are unlikely to want to invest too
heavily in a renewed Pakistani bid to regain its Taliban-era influence
over Afghanistan. Should such a reality get recognised by the generals
in Pakistan and access be offered to India through Pakistan into
Afghanistan and thereafter Central Asia, there would be merit in joining
the CPEC project without prejudice to any stand on legal borders.
Policymakers in India said “nyet” to Gwadar port, a permanent UN
Security Council, membership of ASEAN and several other offers that it
would have been advantageous to accept. Reason, and not emotion, should
dictate India’s response to a serious offer to participate in the CPEC.

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About Prof. M. D. Nalapat

Prof. Madhav Das Nalapat (aka MD Nalapat or Monu Nalapat), holds the UNESCO Peace Chair and is Director of the Department of Geopolitics at Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India. The former Coordinating Editor of the Times of India, he writes extensively on security, policy and international affairs. Prof. Nalapat has no formal role in government, although he is said to influence policy at the highest levels. @MD_Nalapat

MD Nalapat's anthology 'Indutva' (1999)

In 1999, Har-Anand published Indutva an anthology of MD Nalapat's 1990s columns from the Times of India. The individual columns are posted here, in 1998 and 1999 of the blog archive, though the exact dates of publication are uncertain.